Referencing

You can make references to what others have written in different ways:

Direct citation

If you want to reproduce a short section of something someone else wrote, you must cite the exact wording. The citation must be clearly separated from your own text by quotation marks or by using a different kind of font and making extra blank lines around the citation.

Indirect citation

If you for some reason do not want to quote the text word for word, you can choose to paraphrase, rewrite the section. This means that you retell the contents in your own words. Even if you use your own words, you must state that what you are saying comes from someone else’s work. For example, you can use expressions like “Name (year) writes that…”, “which has also been observed by Name (year), who points out that…”, etc.

You can also make references within parentheses at the end of the sentence (Name 2005). If you want to refer to more than one source, which, for example, has shown the same thing, you write (Name 1989, Name 2005).

Summary

If you want to relate a lengthier discussion from someone else’s text, it is probably best to make a summary. Then you give a brief review of the content of the text without details. If you want to use an expression or a part of a sentence from the original text in your summary, you must indicate this direct citation accordingly.